Bukowski: Born Into This (2003)

Frank won’t attempt to encapsulate Charles Bukowski, anymore than any else already has. He is hard to pigeonhole somewhere between swaggering barroom brawler to meek poet. A truly polarizing figure, almost forgotten here in the U.S., yet still adulated abroad. Mickey Rourke has tried to capture him in Barfly (Schroeder 1987), Ben Gazarra in Tales of Ordinary Madness (Ferreri 1981) and even recently Matt Dillon in Factotum (Hamer 2005).

Of late documentarian John Dullaghen has tried to explain Buk in his award winning (Official Selections at Sundance and Tribeca) Bukowski: Born Into This (2003). After years of delay, and an unimpressive theatrical debut, the documentary has finally been released on DVD (Magnolia Home Entertainment March 21, 2006).

The film seems a bit scattered and badly paced, and true fans have probably seen a lot of the footage before (much from Schroeder’s Bukowski Tapes [1987]), if you’ve managed to track’em down. In short the film tries to be both biography and tribute in one hefty chunk.

However, Dullaghen manages as best to get it all in 113 minutes as possible. A valiant effort at showing all sides of the poet, good or ill. Frank finds many pagan Bukowski fans to seize upon his works for taboo’s sake alone. Milquetoast detractors pan his work for the same exact reason. Born Into This is a must-see for both of these camps. It is a look into what exactly is in the man and in his work.

Frank, his biggest skid-row disciple, won’t attempt to encapsulate Charles Bukowski, only leave you with a favorite piece:

Old Man, Dead in a Room this thing upon me is not death but it's as real and as landlords full of maggots pound for rent I eat walnuts in the sheath of my privacy and listen for more important drummers; it's as real, it's as real as the broken-boned sparrow cat-mouthed, uttering more than mere miserable argument; between my toes I stare at clouds, at seas of gaunt sepulcher. . . and scratch my back and form a vowel as all my lovely women (wives and lovers) break like engines into steam of sorrow to be blown into eclipse; bone is bone but this thing upon me as I tear the window shades and walk caged rugs, this thing upon me like a flower and a feast, believe me is not death and is not glory and like Quixote's windmills makes a foe turned by the heavens against one man; ...this thing upon me, great god, this thing upon me crawling like snake, terrifying my love of commonness, some call Art some call Poetry; it's not death but dying will solve its power and as my grey hands drop a last desperate pen in some cheap room they will find me there and never know my name my meaning nor the treasure of my escape. ~ Buk